


lift your open hand

by skitzofreak



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: 5 kisses, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Head Injury, Humor, I win, Mentions of Blood, Various situations, kiss challenge, only the last chapter is M, sex with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-02 13:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14545845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: She is such a mess.-5 Kisses





	1. Jyn + self care + kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinCanTelephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/gifts).



> There was a comment that went something like "she never writes kisses."
> 
> To which I replied: "hold my vodka."
> 
> (Alternate title for this work: "The Author Loves You, But She Is Petty")

For once, Jyn is up before Cassian; she pops awake about an hour before day shift is scheduled to start, gets in a quick breakfast, a light workout, and a five-minute sonic shower before Cassian even starts to pulls himself out of the bunk. She comes out of the tiny ‘fresher (tiny but  _private,_ because high-ranking Intelligence officers get  _some_  perks) in his quarters to see him groping bleary-eyed for his clothes in the semi-dark of the cabin, and she grins as she throws his shirt at his face. He makes a low, disgruntled noise in response, and pulls it on with his eyes still mostly shut and his movements slow and deliberate. Jyn’s humor fades, because Cassian is normally a morning person, and this lethargy means he’s still not recovered from that last mission, the one that aggravated his back implants and made him silent and stiff the whole way back to Home One.

In fact, he’s probably getting up so far behind her because he took ages to fall asleep last night. She’s not entirely sure he slept at all, considering that he was still stroking her back idly when she drifted off last night and she woke to find him toying with the ends of her hair, though his eyes were closed and he lay still beside her. He sits on the edge of the bunk now and scrubs at his face with both hands. He’s got a headache already, she can see it in the tense lines around his eyes. Jyn thinks of the work they have to do today, the cultural prep they need to do before they ship out to their next planet-side operation, the data crunching to try and narrow down their search for a potential Imperial defector – there’s a lot of staring at screens and reading between the lines on intercepted Imperial message traffic, a lot of puzzles and guesswork, a lot of hunching over consoles. It’s going to be brutal on his back, and worse for his headache.

The nice thing about being in the Intel division, other than the private ‘fresher, is that Cassian technically doesn’t have to work on the day shift/night shift schedule. So long as his work gets done, no one cares where or when he does it. Jyn considers this for a minute, and then makes the decision.

She drops the towel and strides naked across the room until she’s standing right in front of him. It says something about his condition that Cassian doesn’t even notice right away, his eyes still squeezed shut and his hands laced into his hair. Jyn drops to her knees in front of him and that gets his attention, his eyes snapping open and then going almost comically wide when he sees her stark naked and looking up at him calmly. “I’m going to help,” Jyn tells him.

Cassian stares at her for a second longer, then closes his eyes tightly and opens them again, like he thinks he’s hallucinating. He looks so completely staggered that Jyn can’t help but grin. She waits for him to finish processing what she’s saying (and what she’s doing), and it takes a little longer than she’d like. “We have,” he pauses, shakes his head. “Work.”

“And you’re going to be shite at it,” she shoots back, getting a little impatient now because the floor is cold and hard on her knees, and the recycled air of Home One is chilly, her nipples pulling tight, her skin pebbling all over. But she doesn’t move and refuses to shiver, staring up at him in challenge. “You need a few hours of sleep, or you’re going to miss things, and the headache will just get worse.”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” he says softly, and then raises an eyebrow at her, “and you don’t look like you’re offering to let me.”

She shrugs, and keeps her voice nonchalant. “Not at first.”

Cassian huffs a laugh, drops his hands to his knees. His ears are turning red, and she can see his pulse quickening in his throat. “I’m not sure…” he starts hesitatingly, then sighs. “I probably won’t be worth much.” He clears his throat and meets her eyes a little reluctantly. “Not at my best at the moment.”

Jyn stares at him, because she’s naked on her knees in front of him and he thinks  _she’s_  expecting a performance from  _him?_ Clearly, she’s being too subtle.

Jyn pushes herself to her feet and then without ceremony she straddles his lap, wraps both her hands around the back of his neck, and crushes her mouth against his. He actually gasps in surprise, which gives her the opportunity to pull his lip between her teeth. It’s a rough kiss, because she’s making a point and he’s being incredibly slow on the uptake. It worries her a little, his strangely passive response, and she starts to pull back. The moment he feels her leaning away, though, Cassian seems to snap out of his stunned stillness, and he makes a noise of protest low in his throat and wraps his hand around the back of her head, dragging her back down. His free hand curls around her cheek, and he groans softly against her mouth when she responds by digging her fingers hard into the back of his neck and shoulders.

When she finally lets him breathe, Cassian presses his lips to her shoulder and sighs against her skin – and she can’t help it, she shivers at the feel of his breath rushing down her neck and chest.

Cassian sits up immediately. “It’s too cold in here for you to be this…” he clears his throat again, and makes a vague gesture while looking at some random point a few centimeters above her left shoulder. His ears, she notes, are now brilliant red, and his heartbeat is fast against her bare chest. But the lines around his eyes are already fainter than ten minutes ago, and his shoulders are already beginning to loosen.  

Jyn rolls her eyes, threads the fingers of both her hands through his hair, and forces him to meet her eye. “Then I’ll warm myself up,” she smirks at him, and adds brazenly, “Lie back and let me?”

Her reward is to see the lines around his eyes soften from tension to humor, and he pulls his hand from her face in order to push himself back on the bunk, pulling her along with him. “If you insist.”

“Yes,” she says, and shoves him onto his back, done with talking for awhile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One.


	2. Jyn + realization of happiness + panic + kiss

It’s a completely unremarkable day, the day that Jyn panics. There hasn’t been any major battles in over a month, no one she knows has died or been significantly injured, hells, there hasn’t even been a major shift in the front line for ages. Jyn spends the majority of the day in the droid bay with Cassian and Kay, working on some salvaged droid cores that someone pulled from an old Imperial base. So far they haven’t gotten much more than sparking circuit boards and broken code logs, but there’s a chance the Imps left something useful when they abandoned the old base and left their droids to rust in the silence of an otherwise empty moon.

Jyn’s hand is starting to cramp from fiddling with the delicate wires of an old protocol droid (well, really it’s only the head, because the rest of the body was too badly damaged by time and dust to be of much use), so she sits up and stretches her hands out for a few minutes. Across from her, Kay is plugged into the half-shredded chassis of an astromech, an R1 model, attempting to process the half-dead programs still running through the corroded droid core. Kay’s optics are dimmed, most of his processing power dedicated to the astromech, which makes him look like he’s taking a nap, although she knows better. Still, he hasn’t moved in about an hour and doesn’t move now, when she looks up, which is too boring to keep her attention while she stretches out.

Cassian sits next her, bent over an ancient TX model, and he’s much more interesting to watch. There’s no one else in the bay besides a couple of astromechs charging against the far wall. With only Jyn and Kay around, Cassian is so focused on the fiddly task of re-soldering the tactical droid’s memory core into a new, hopefully useful pattern that his normal guarded expression has dropped. Instead, he’s adopted an intent look that makes him look about five years younger than usual, his eyebrows raised, his mouth pursed slightly, and as Jyn watches, he squints with one eye down through the TX’s broken optic band and tilts his head to get a better view of whatever’s in there. It’s endearing and just a little ridiculous, and Jyn bites her lip to keep from laughing out loud and distracting him. The wall against her back is warm from her body heat, the gentle hum of the machinery around her is soothing, and Cassian is sitting between her and the door, with Kay between him and any possible threat that might walk in. It hits Jyn, suddenly and without warning, that she is safe here, safe and warm and  _happy,_ shit, when was the last time she was happy like this? When was the last time she just sat somewhere, content, with people she loved?

Onderon, the year before Saw dumped her, sitting in the ready room with the cadre cleaning weapons and swapping outrageous battle stories. Lah’mu, playing number games in her little house with Mama and Papa while outside it rained and rained and rained. And both of those times, shit, every time she’s ever felt anything even approaching this kind of peace, it had always, always ended with Jyn alone and desperate and clutching the sharp pieces of her shattered heart as they left her and left her and  _left_  –

“ _Hey,_ ” Cassian is saying sharply, his face significantly closer than she expects, and Jyn jumps and realizes that she’s got her arms tight around her waist, her jaw clamped shut and her breathing is harsh, unsteady. Cassian has slid over on the bench until his leg is only a centimeter or two from hers, his hand tight on her upper arm, and he’s clearly been talking to her for awhile. He sees her focusing on him and his voice gentles, “Jyn?”

She can’t do it. It echoes in her head and sits on the tip of her tongue,  _I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do that, I can’t go through it again, I can’t, I can’t, it’s too much to ask._

But she can’t open her mouth, can’t say the words, because a small rational part of her that isn’t frozen doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to shove him away because then she’ll just be making it happen anyway, self fulfilling prophecy, right, and it’s all bantha shit, all just her own karking head getting screwed up because she’s just so screwed up, isn’t she?

“She appears to be in respiratory distress,” Kay’s voice sounds too loud, too grating. “Possible reasons include air-borne biochemical weapons, previously unknown head injury, or the triggering of a psychological issue.” His optics have flared back to life and he’s unplugged from the broken droid, and Jyn registers that not only has he stood up but he’s moved to stand squarely in the doorway, blocking anyone from coming in. “Recommended course of action is to put on the gas masks and report to medical.”

“Jyn,” Cassian lifts his hand from her arm, but before she can panic about that (panic more, is it possible for someone to panic  _more?_ Shite, she’s a force-damned  _mess_ ), Cassian slips his arm tentatively over her shoulder and whispers, “What do you need?”

She doesn’t know, not really, so Jyn does the only thing that makes any sense. She throws her hands out like she’s drowning and he’s the safety line, grabs his shirt collar and drags him down. Cassian takes a quick, startled breath and his free hand flails a little before he manages to brace himself on her knee, but he doesn’t resist. The kiss is a little awkward, in her desperation she misses the mark slightly, so she’s off-center and he’s off-balance. But then his arm tightens around her shoulders, he twists a little on the bench so he can line up his mouth with hers, and then he gentles the kiss, slipping his hand from her shoulder to her neck and rubbing small circles there. His hand on her knee relaxes and he runs his palm up and down her thigh, a soothing motion.

Cassian breathes slowly and calmly, letting her kiss him as hard as she likes but only returning soft brushes of his tongue, not biting back or pushing hard against her mouth. It ought to irritate her, but somehow it doesn’t, and after a moment she understands why. He’s refusing to stoke her adrenaline, staying relaxed and soft, and slowly her own body recognizes the lack of tension and starts to settle. The high-pitched whine of terror in the back of her head seems to dull and fade, her heart slows again, and Cassian’s breath is sweet and calm against her cheek, his hands gentle on her neck and knee.

Jyn heaves a sigh and pulls away, resting her forehead against his and closing her eyes. It allows her to avoid looking directly at him, because what can she even say?  _Sorry, I just realized that I was happy and it scared the shit out of me?_

She is such a mess.

Cassian doesn’t speak, thank fuck, but his hand combs lightly through her hair and he lets her lean against him, waits patiently for her to pull away. If she were brave enough to look, she knows that she would see compassion in his eyes. If she told him what she’s thinking, he would understand. Cassian has not had an overabundance of happiness in his life, either. But she doesn’t look and she doesn’t speak, because she doesn’t know how and he doesn’t need her to, anyway. Not now. Maybe later, maybe someday, but not now. Right now, he’s just here with her. Right now, they are quiet and together and safe.

Jyn sits up and swipes the discarded protocol droid head off the floor, training her eyes on it and poking determinedly at the scrambled insides. To her side, Cassian shifts away just long enough to grab the TX and pull it over so he can sit with his leg against hers, and without a word, they both go back to working. She is absurdly grateful, but doesn’t know how to tell him  _that_  anymore than she can explain what just happened, so she just leans against his side a little and passes him one of the smaller scanners when he glances around for it.

“For the record,” Kay says, clumping back from the door to reposition himself by the broken astromech, “that is not a standard recommended course of action for respiratory distress. I will send approved emergency medical procedures to both of your accounts for further reading.”

Jyn grunts, and Cassian says “thank you, Kay,” in a grave voice, but neither of them look up, and neither of them move from their semi-huddle on the bench for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two.


	3. Jyn + her kyber crystal + kiss

The shrapnel sliced his right temple open to the bone, and the only thing scarier than the sheet of blood that paints his pale face is the wild, unfamiliar look in his eyes as Jyn fights to pin him down so Bodhi can press the bacta patch over the wound.

“Cassian!” Jyn bellows into his ear (she has to yell, because Cassian is struggling savagely in her grip and shouting in a mangled mash of various languages because oh, fuck, something is  _broken_  in him, please, please don’t be dying) “Cassian, it’s us! It’s  _us!_  It’s just Bodhi, he’s trying to help – “

“Got it, I got it!” Bodhi presses the edges of the patch over the gaping cut in Cassian’s head and then yelps as Cassian wrenches his arm from Jyn’s grasp (she’s trying not to hurt him more, trying to stop him from hurting himself). Cassian throws a brutal backhand at Bodhi’s face, but he’s so disoriented that it clips Bodhi’s shoulder instead, spinning the pilot slightly away but not really hurting him. Cassian snarls something that she thinks is Mandalorian but it’s so slurred she can’t pick the words apart, and Jyn has to dig her fingers into his blood-soaked sleeve and slip around behind his back to get his flailing arm under control.

“Hold him!” Bodhi commands (like she isn’t already scrambling to do just that, her heart aching in her chest as she tries not to hurt him), scrambling for the spilled medkit a few steps away, where it slid when Bodhi threw the U-Wing into hyperspace just in time to avoid death by incineration from the exploding pirate ship. “Sedative, sedative!” Bodhi shouts at her as he digs through the chaotic mess of the kit.

Cassian slams his shoulder into her chest, his teeth bared and his eyes wide but unseeing. Jyn grunts and locks her arms and legs around him, and twists her face away to avoid his headbutt. Too much blood in his eyes and the blow to the head have fucked him up too much to recognize her, he’s running on base instinct, and instinct tells him that he’s trapped, trapped, and some of his worst nightmares revolve around him being trapped by people he can’t see. (She already ripped the Lullaby from his collar and threw it over her shoulder into the burning wreckage of the sinking pirate ship as they left; she’s not letting him anywhere near something he might recognize as an “out” when he doesn’t even know what he’s escaping). “I’m sorry,” Jyn whispers into his neck, and then has to slide on her knees to move further behind him to avoid getting thrown over his hip. (Shit, she showed him that move, and if he were in better shape, he might even have pulled it off; he doesn’t know her but he remembers what she’s taught him, and she doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry.)

Cassian throws his head back (fuck, that can’t be good for his injury) and arches his back so far that Jyn almost loses her hold on his much taller frame, but if there’s one thing Jyn Erso knows how to do, it’s  _hold on_. So she grits her teeth and tries her best to cradle his head without letting him loose, and pretends not to understand what he’s shouting now ( _No me toques! No me toques_ , and she doesn’t speak Alderaanian well but she knows that phrase, and she’s not listening to him now because he doesn’t know her, doesn’t know he’s hurting her, would never hurt her like that, she knows, she knows)

(but still)

 _“Bodhi,”_  she hisses.

Bodhi is flinging things to the floor, bacta gel and painpills and bandages but no sedative injector. “I can’t find –“

Cassian wrenches his body in her grip, a cat-fast movement that she only just feels coming in time to adjust, but he manages to get his arm free anyway (again, damn all the stars in the kriffing galaxy, the man has never been quite on her level for hand to hand combat but he’s just…he’s fucking  _relentless_ , constantly pushing against her pin, viciously, desperately struggling to be free) and he twists in her grip, clawing at her neck.

Jyn closes her eyes and turns her face away. As long as he doesn’t get her in the eye, it’s fine, she’ll heal, and if he wakes up (when he wakes up) as himself again, she’ll lie and say it was one of the pirates because he doesn’t need that kind of –

\- he stills.

Jyn’s heart leaps into her throat and she snaps her eyes open, but Cassian is still awake, breathing hard, his eyes still unfocused and bloodshot, but his hand…his hand caught in the cord of her kyber necklace, and his fingers have clamped down on the crystal.

Jyn killed the first person who touched her crystal. She was nine, and it was more an accident, a mad scramble to snatch the Imperial’s blaster from his belt and shoot him before he ripped the cord from her neck. She broke the arm of the Partisan who played with it when she was twelve, teasing her. She beat the smuggler who tried to steal it from her when she was nineteen so badly that he had been left deaf in one ear and permanently disfigured. She had never, ever, seen someone reaching for her neck and felt anything except a very particular blend of rage, panic, and grief.

Cassian runs his thumb over the edges of her crystal, leaving a smear of blood along the polished surface, and all Jyn feels is a gasping sense of relief. His mouth moves, though now he makes no sound, and for just a moment, she thinks (she  _hopes_ ) that his eyes focus, and Cassian sees her.

And then Bodhi jams the sedative injector against his neck. Cassian blinks, then collapses like a ragdoll on top of her. Jyn rocks back under his weight but manages to keep herself from falling all the way to the floor.

“Here, here,” Bodhi flutters anxiously at their side, grabbing Cassian’s coat and helping her roll him to his back on the ground. “Well,” he jokes weakly as Jyn bends over her unconscious partner, “that was, um…wait, what are you…?”

“Set coordinates for Mako-Ta Base,” Jyn orders, unhooking her necklace and tying the cord carefully around Cassian’s wrist. His fingers are still wrapped around the crystal, but they are at least two hours out from the nearest rebel base. She’s not entirely sure how strong that sedative is, and Cassian is a stubborn ass. If he wakes up even a little bit, he will probably at least know that he’s drugged and throw another fit.

Bodhi regards her silently for a long moment, and then gets up and goes back to the cockpit.

Jyn stretches her legs out under Cassian’s head, settles back against the wall, and kicks a few bandage packs from the medkit towards herself. It’s awkward to reach across Cassian’s still body to grab the scattered supplies, but eventually she gets enough to wipe his face and neck down, clean some of the grit and ash and blood from both of their hands. In the cockpit, she can hear Bodhi calling ahead on secure frequencies, getting an emergency medical team ready and waiting for them.

Her own heart is still aching in her chest, the old terror whistling high and frightened in the back of her head ( _don’t leave, don’t leave, please, don’t leave_ ). But Cassian’s fingers are still tight around her crystal, his heart steady under her hand, and no blood is leaking out of the edges of the bacta patch. That’s…something. It’s enough to keep her going.

She hunches over, presses her lips against his forehead just next to the patch, and closes her eyes. He’s warm against her mouth, his breath stirs her hair, and when she slips her hand from his chest to his wrist, she can just press her fingertip against the edge of her crystal peeking through his fingers. The crystal is warm too, warm as it was years ago, when her mother slipped it over her head and hugged her tight. Warm as it was when Saw settled it around her neck after a bad injury, and she realized her commander had been wearing it under his armor for the three days it took her to recover.

Jyn traces her finger from the crystal to Cassian’s knuckles, then his wrist, and rests her hand there, feeling the comforting, familiar rhythm under his skin.

“It’s going to be okay, Jyn,” Bodhi turns in his seat and looks back at her, his hair wild and his face covered in grime but his eyes are kind and his jaw set. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Jyn nods, and curls her fingers tight around Cassian’s steady pulse.

She knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three.


	4. Jyn + touch + kiss

Jyn isn’t alone anymore, and it’s somehow not terrifying.

Oh, there are moments, that’s for sure. She wakes up sometimes in the middle of her sleep cycle to find her heart racing and her skin clammy, the echoes of imagined blood on her empty, reaching hands. Or she’ll see him walking away, down the corridor or onto a ship, and his back retreating into the distance will suddenly be all she can focus on, all she can see as her vision greys out around the edges and her lungs shrivel inside her aching chest.

But those moments pass, sanity reasserted as she rolls over and twines her cold fingers around his warm hand, or she calls out and he turns around and waits for her to catch up and walk with him. And when he’s not there, still up and debriefing somewhere without her, or only walking away to accomplish some task in another part of the base, she reminds herself that this is only temporary, the absence is now the anomaly and no longer the baseline of her life. It isn’t always easy to believe herself (it never is, not really), but Chirrut tells her that words have power, tells her that a mantra is just a promise you make to yourself - so she says it to herself all the time, sometimes in silence, sometimes aloud, _I am not alone_.

She forgets sometimes, like when some yeoman with a Core world accent gives her grief for her last name, and she puts up with it for days without a word. It’s not hurting her (physically), and anyway, kicking his ass would just validate his words, so she grits her teeth and doesn’t care. She doesn’t care. It’s fine. She can handle it.

It’s Kay, of all people, who stomps up suddenly in the middle of one of the kid’s nastier muttered asides about murderers and monsters, Kay who interrupts the conversation with a long stream of the millions of deaths committed by historical Core world murderers. “Of course, most Core records prefer the term ‘colonist,’” Kay ends with an arch note in his voicebox, like he's never heard of sarcasm in his life and would be offended at the implication. The kid stomps off red in the face, and Jyn is trying to figure out what to do about any of it when she sees Chirrut standing placidly by the door, looking for all the world as if he just happens to be passing through.

“You have friends, Jyn,” Chirrut chides her before she can even speak, reaching out until his hand finds hers and squeezes, and then he sweeps grandly out with his sash fluttering behind.  

“I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of his logic,” Kay says shortly, his metal hand accidentally swinging out and knocking over the yoeman’s carefully stacked datapads as he follows Chirrut. “Relationship status had nothing to do with it.”

Jyn pokes one of the fallen ‘pads idly with her booted toe and grins a little to the empty room, her mantra whispering in the back of her head.

There are other examples, like when Bodhi hugs her after every successful mission, and hugs her harder after the few that are not as successful. Like when Baze comes looking for her after that really bad mission, but instead of offering her the weak assurances of the doctors or the empty platitudes of Command, he simply sets a cup of hot tea in her free hand, the one not occupied with Cassian’s, and waits with her in silence.

Cassian.

Words have power, she believes Chirrut, but she also knows that there are some things that are greater yet. And nothing reminds her of her new truth more (or more often) than Cassian, and he never says a word out loud.

He touches her. He touches her _constantly._

A light brush on her shoulder or back when they have to walk through a door and he wants her to go ahead ( _I’m right behind you_ ). A hard press of his arm against hers when they are in a dangerous place and he _doesn’t_ want her to go ahead ( _stay close to me_ ). A light drag of his fingers against the back of her neck when he passes behind her at the table on his way to an empty chair ( _I’m here, I see you saved me a space_ ). A quick touch to her waist or hip as he squeezes past her in a cramped hallway or on some small ship ( _hello, I’m glad you’re here with me_ ).

And that, she thinks sometimes with her face a little warm, is just in public. In the moments that they steal, even the quieter ones, Cassian is even more tactile, and he supplements the touches with kisses. Jyn’s been kissed before, she’s not new to it – but she’s never had anyone kiss her without immediate intent, without wanting anything from her. Cassian kisses her cheek as he passes on his way to the ‘fresher. When they are bent over some massive, unwieldly data file hunting for chinks in the Empire’s armor, he will randomly reach over and pick up her hand, pressing her knuckles to his mouth before idly asking if she’s found anything. When he crawls out of the bed in the morning, he never leaves without pressing his lips to her temple. If she leaves first, he fists his hand in her shirt and refuses to let go until she leans down and lets him do the same. (She almost teases him about that but it’s too…fragile. Too important. She’s never had anyone do anything like this, she doesn’t know the rules).

Her favorites are when she is simply passing him to somewhere and instead of a passing touch, he will sometimes suddenly step directly into her path and cup his hands around her face, lean down and kiss her for a long, breathless moment like he’s reminding himself of the taste. Those kisses are sometimes hard and a little desperate, but most of the time, it’s just…it’s a greeting, a confirmation, a promise. She’s not alone. He’s not alone.

She never really gets used to it, it never becomes routine the way cleaning her weapon or writing a report becomes routine. But she makes it a part of her life, makes a point of whispering her mantra every day at least once. She puts effort into keeping tabs on Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze and Kay (no matter how much he claims that droids do not require social circles). And finally, slowly, carefully, she starts to echo Cassian’s unspoken reminders back to him. She slides a little closer on the bench at the galley table and lets her leg press against his as they eat. She runs her hand down his spine when she squeezes behind him in their cramped quarters on her way to the door. When he climbs in their bed, she rests her hand on his chest for a moment, even on the rare days when she’s angry with him, when they are stiff and silent and brittle with one another. (Those are the days that he usually catches her hand and holds it for a longer moment than she intends, hard against his heart).

Maybe someday it will become routine, someday she won’t need to remind herself, but for now –

For now, Jyn tilts her face so he can reach her temple. For now, she curls her fingers against his and enjoys the scratch of his beard on her knuckles. For now, she rocks forward on her toes and leans into his kiss because she wants to remember what he tastes like, too. Because she wants to remind him of their new truth.

They are not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four.


	5. so kiss me

Jyn’s never really been one to fuss, so when she hears the awkward  _clunk_  of the fold-out rack in the hold, she doesn’t rush out into the U-Wing hold to see why. Instead, she grimaces at her reflection in the spotty ‘fresher mirror and starts looking for the medkit. The heavy metal slap of the bunk locking into place that hard means Cassian isn’t bothering to lower it with care, which means his back is bothering him again. She finds the medkit stowed under the sink and pulls out a couple of painkillers; he’ll complain and resist, but she’s stubborn and he’s tired. She takes care to only grab the lowest-grade of pills available, though, the ones that won’t make him so drowsy or sluggish. She rubs the towel in her wet hair one last time, grabs a bottle of water from the cooler, and slips out of the ‘fresher. Across from the ‘fresher door, Cassian crawls stiffly into the rack and flops on his stomach with a long exhale that is almost a groan.

“Hey,” she taps his arm and then shoves the painkillers in his face when he drags his eyes open to peer at her. She’s never been much of a nurse, either, so she doesn’t bother trying to cajole him into taking the medicine or maybe starting some of those therapy stretches he’s supposed to do when the pain flares up.

“’m fine,” he mumbles, closing his eyes again. Jyn stays exactly where she is, hand outstretched, resting the water bottle on the edge of the rack. He’s stubborn, but she’s not going to watch him limp around tomorrow if she can help it. She counts to fifteen before he sighs and gropes blindly at her hand. Jyn sets the painkillers in his palm and then shoves the water bottle closer until he rolls over and takes it, throwing back the pills and a gulp of water with a scowl. She takes the water bottle back and leans over him to stick it in the security strap on the wall, easily within his reach. To her surprise, Cassian takes advantage of her proximity and balance to loop his arms around her waist and yank her. She staggers, just manages to catch herself on the rack before she collapses on top of him.

“ _Hey_ ,” she says again, more repressively. “Your back hurts.”

He hums in agreement, and doesn’t let go, keeping her tight against his chest with a solid grip, even though the rest of him looks perfectly relaxed. Jyn squints at him suspiciously for a moment, but he remains still and stoic, only his hold on her indicating that he’s still awake. Jyn braces her hands to keep her weight off him as much as possible and wiggles the rest of her body onto the rack, curling around him. He exaggerates a shiver as her cold bare feet press against his significantly warmer legs, and she flops her damp hair on his face in retaliation, which makes him huff a laugh and swipe his hand across her neck to gather the wet strands on the side.

The touch feels so good that for a moment she forgets herself and arches her neck against his fingers. Then she remembers his back, his exhaustion (to be honest, she’s not feeling particularly alert herself), and she forces herself to stop and lie still.

Cassian traces the back of her neck again lazily, and Jyn bites her lip and pretends not to feel the little sparks that ignites in the wake of his fingers. He’s half asleep, and he needs the rest. Under her ear, she can hear his heartbeat, slow and steady and comforting, and his warmth is already seeping through their clothes and chasing away the faint chill of hyperspace and her shower. Jyn usually runs warmer than Cassian, but it’s been a long day, and anyway, if he keeps drawing little aimless doodles on the back of her neck and shoulder like this, she’ll be a furnace soon enough.

Jyn turns her face against his shoulder and tells herself to calm down and go to sleep. The movements of his hand are getting more random, broader, softer strokes, he’s probably only a few minutes from passing out. His hand smooths down her spine, up again, then down and down further until he’s….

Jyn lifts her head and glares at him. “You’re tired,” she says, almost accusingly.

“Not that tired,” he replies, his eyes still closed, his face almost serene, but his hands are anything  _but_  still on her body now, both of them running down the slope of her back and tugging gently on her hips, his thumbs pressing small circles on the inner crease of each thigh. Jyn opens her mouth to point out that the painkillers for his back cannot have kicked in this fast, but Cassian moves faster than she expects, rolling to his side and pinning her between his body and the bulkhead of the U-Wing. “Jyn,” he murmurs in a low, rough voice against her throat, which is not fair at all. “Jyn.”

She retaliates by sneaking her hands under his shirt and scraping her nails lightly around his ribs and down his back. Her hands linger on the surgical scars on his lower back, but Cassian hooks her knee and drags her leg over his hip before she can get too focused on them. As if to make a point, he curves his back under her hands, rolling his lower body against hers and making her gasp at the sudden heat and friction. She can feel him smile against her neck at her reaction, and some competitive part of her considers pushing him back over and kissing him until he can’t breathe. But she only tightens her leg around his hips and lets him set the pace this time. His back probably does still hurt, but if this is what he wants, if this is how he’s comfortable, she’s okay with that. (He unhooks the front of her trousers and slips his fingers under the fabric and actually she is  _more_  than okay with that.) It’s a slow-building pressure that he’s stoking inside her, and she finds herself enjoying the unhurried pace -  a new sensation for her, and not for the first time she finds herself marveling at this life she’s found, this world that she never knew existed before Cassian pulled her in and asked her to be part of it.

His breathing is still fairly even against her skin, though hers is getting a little ragged as he pushes her clothes out of the way just enough to reach all the most sensitive places on her body. She tries to pull his body flush with hers again, but he resists, laughing quietly at her frustrated growl.

“Let me finish this,” he whispers, his hand so warm and light between her legs, “and then you can be in charge.”

“Thanks,” she says dryly, or tries to, except he changes the pace and her breath hitches mid-word. She glares at him, but his face is still pressed into the curve of her shoulder, and though she feels his smile broaden, he doesn’t look up and meet her eye. It’s still slow, maddeningly slow, but Jyn knows that he likes that sometimes, likes driving her out of her mind and out of her skin for as long as possible. Most of the time she’ll challenge back, make it a game between them, but right now, she’s tired, and he’s stubborn. So instead she just…lets it happen. She digs her fingers into his neck and shoulders and back the way he likes, she lets him hear the way her breath catches and stutters in response to his movements, but she stays on her side and lets him set the pace. He brings her to the edge twice, slows down, laughs at her frustrated growl and kisses her jaw, her ear, catches her mouth in a long, soft kiss that draws a moan from her (damn it, that is  _not fair_ ) – and then he starts again.

“Cassian,” she fists one hand in his hair warningly, trying not to think about the embarrassing way her body is shuddering against him, reminding herself that this is Cassian, he’s not going to mock her, he’s not going to think her weak, and he must hear some of her nerves in her voice because he nods and then tugs her shoulder, pushes her around until her back is to his chest and his hands both have much more free access to her body now, one cupped around her breast and the other between her legs and Jyn burns under his merciless touch, burns with his lips against her pulse, breathing her name into her skin and then –

He’s saying something in his mother tongue against her hair when her vision clears and her heart stops thundering in her ears. It’s low and fast, too fast for her still-limited knowledge to pick out more than the occasional word, but she catches  _solitario_  and _fuerte_ , _quédate conmigo_ and – wait - 

He stops talking abruptly as she rolls back over, lightening fast, and this time she doesn’t let him hide his face or keep his eyes closed, she grabs his face with both hands and makes him look at her. His eyes are wide, startled, and his mouth hardens into a nervous line, but he doesn’t look away. She’s about to demand that he repeat that last word – she’s still struggling to learn his first language, and she’s never heard that word spoken out loud, only seen it in the books and files he gives her to read for practice, but she’s almost sure she just heard it, almost sure he said it – but she can already see the shutters closing in his eyes. She can feel the line of his jaw hardening beneath her palms. He’s pulling back from her without moving a muscle, certain he’s crossed some line, so Jyn…closes her eyes. She closes her eyes, pulls him blindly back down to her mouth, and this time she controls the kiss, this time she sets a slow, sweet pace until he is gasping, until his arms are almost desperately tight around her, his chest heaving against her shirt.

“Me too,” she whispers against his lips when she pulls away long enough to let him breathe. “Cassian, me too.”

It’s a strange new life she’s built, Jyn thinks as Cassian at last lets her move in close and fumble with his own clothes, wanting more of his skin against hers, more of his warmth. It’s a new sensation, this give and take, slow and gentle and needy all at once. She’s never been held like she’s precious, she’s never been kissed like she’s necessary, she’s never been so –

“ _Jyn_ ,” he says into the quiet of the U-wing, the quiet of their private world, and she’s never been so loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five. 
> 
> I win.


End file.
